Showing posts with label 45th President. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 45th President. Show all posts

November 22, 2016

God appeared to him twice: “for you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up,”


So Solomon finished building the Temple of the Lord, as well as the royal palace. He completed everything he had planned to do. 2 Then the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had done before at Gibeon. 3 The Lord said to him,
I have heard your prayer and your petition. I have set this Temple apart to be holy—this place you have built where my name will be honored forever. I will always watch over it, for it is dear to my heart.
4 “As for you, if you will follow me with integrity and godliness, as David your father did, obeying all my commands, decrees, and regulations, 5 then I will establish the throne of your dynasty over Israel forever. For I made this promise to your father, David: ‘One of your descendants will always sit on the throne of Israel.’
6 “But if you or your descendants abandon me and disobey the commands and decrees I have given you, and if you serve and worship other gods, 7 then I will uproot Israel from this land that I have given them. I will reject this Temple that I have made holy to honor my name. I will make Israel an object of mockery and ridicule among the nations. 8 And though this Temple is impressive now, all who pass by will be appalled and will gasp in horror. They will ask, ‘Why did the Lord do such terrible things to this land and to this Temple?’
9 “And the answer will be, ‘Because his people abandoned the Lord their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt, and they worshiped other gods instead and bowed down to them. That is why the Lord has brought all these disasters on them.’”
(1 Kings 9:1-9 )
John 9:3-5
“It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered. “This happened so the power of God could be seen in him. 4 We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us. The night is coming, and then no one can work. 5 But while I am here in the world, I am the light of the world.”
Romans 13:8-14 Love Fulfills God’s Requirements
Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law. 9 For the commandments say,You must not commit adultery. You must not murder. You must not steal. You must not covet.”[a] These—and other such commandments—are summed up in this one commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”[b] 10 Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s law.
11 This is all the more urgent, for you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. 12 The night is almost gone; the day of salvation will soon be here. So remove your dark deeds like dirty clothes, and put on the shining armor of right living. 13 Because we belong to the day, we must live decent lives for all to see. Don’t participate in the darkness of wild parties and drunkenness, or in sexual promiscuity and immoral living, or in quarreling and jealousy. 14 Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires.
Footnotes:
13:9a Exod 20:13-15, 17.
13:9b Lev 19:18.
All the above passages are taken from Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).

June 13, 2016

a tale of two cities: a choice

This is the time to mourn. The church must wake up and mourn. I am talking to the church as a whole on earth, not just America, China, Europe, Africa, Asia, Third world or first world. I am calling out to both the traditional evangelical and the Spirit-filled and Bible believing-all who believe the reality and truthfulness of the words of God both Old and New Testament, from Genesis to revelation. This is the time to wake up from narrowness and exclusiveness. Just look at Jesus. The example He set while on earth! Look at the apostles, Peter’s call to the Gentile’s home, Paul’s call to the world of demons (idolatry-infested world), and all the apostles and disciples of the first church who were scattered all over the world before Christianity. No, I am not talking about missionaries going now to the foreign worlds. I am talking about your own home ground your own nation wherever you are if you can read English and this blog. Wake up and stop one thing before you go out and evangelize. Stop your physical mind’s prejudices. Look at Jesus. What He did not do and what He did. Be led by the Holy Spirit as you read.
My spirit urged me to summarize what Jesus did not do:
1. He did not ask a man of other faith to kill anyone (regardless what they believed in or their lifestyle was)in the name of God.
2. He did not condemn anyone except the religious hypocrites who stopped people from coming to Jesus and believing in the Good News Jesus brought to all mankind.
3. Even so, Jesus did not kill or send anyone to kill the hypocrites.
4. He did not condone anyone judging another.
5. He did not agree to using physical force (violence) to resolve injustice within a nation.
A summary of what Jesus did:
1. Jesus came to save sinners and healed the sick.
2. Jesus put forgiveness as number one consideration, even for His enemies.
3. Jesus associated/socialized with sinners.
4. Jesus showed love and compassions.
5. Jesus gave life.
By agreeing with the thieves who came in to steal, kill and destroy lives, the church becomes accomplice to murder. Don’t you ever realize that in the spiritual realm the territorial spirits fight among themselves? Their number one ruler does his own harvest of souls by pitching his subordinates one against another.
You may ask, when the time is so bleak and you need to choose between two imperfect candidates for your national number one, whom should you choose? Didn’t the Bible show you the history of Israel, in the bleakest time when they were besieged by the strongest enemies and their own weakest kings ever? What did God ask prophet Jeremiah do? Jeremiah became the national number one traitor because he gave his countrymen an oracle that they were to choose the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar instead of choosing the Egyptian king Necho II. There was no other option. God told them to choose Nebuchadnezzar. Did Nebuchadnezzar do a good job in finishing off the other enemies of God? He did. On the other hand, Necho II failed in his attempted conquests.
The Israelites refused to listen to the divine oracle and thus suffered defeat and were still taken to Babylon for a season to be cleansed, healed, to recuperate and restore their spiritual strength just as prophesied. These deportations are dated to 597 BC for the first, with others dated at 587/586 BC, and 582/581 BC respectively. After the fall of Babylon to the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 539 BC, exiled Judeans were permitted to return to Jerusalem and Judah of Israel. The temple of Jerusalem and the walls were re-built. Worship of the true God resumed.
This is a record of the history of God. When Christians read God’s history and look at what Jesus did to demonstrate how things in this world are done, we will know what to choose and who to vote for. We shall always align with the plan of God even in the bleakest time in our own history. Look at Jesus and look at the two choices, which do you think is more like Nebuchadnezzar? Who do you think will bring your nation out of its weakling’s position? Who is the strong man? Who will be given the might to defeat the many foes inside and outside? Was Nebuchadnezzar a godly man? Not at the beginning. But in the book of Daniel he finally encountered the reality of the God of Israel, our God. And Nebuchadnezzar turned over a new leaf.
Jesus demonstrated this equally seemingly unusual choice by choosing the chief tax collector, the ungodly rich man Zacchaeus in the land of Israel as his host for a dinner party. The Son of God Himself gave this honor and privilege to a person disliked and even hated by many fellow Jews. In today’s term, a most un-Christian person. What happened after he encountered Jesus? He was transformed and saved. He did lots of good deeds to his fellow countrymen.
Summary: Look at the divine records.

2024 not abandoned: a new spiritual journey

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